Cop OutMovie Reviews

Poster art for "Cop Out."

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Avg. Critic Score: 31 out of 100 Generally unfavorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
16 Iffy for 16+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 60
    Los Angeles Times | Betsy Sharkey

    There is enough ridiculous fun in the Tracy Morgan- Bruce Willis pairing as two of Brooklyn's "finest" to get many of you past the squirm-inducing stuff. Read full review

  • 50
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    If you're like me, diluted Smith is still better than no Smith at all. Read full review

  • 50
    The Hollywood Reporter | Michael Rechtshaffen

    Definitely has its amusing moments, but ultimately all that improvised shtick gets mighty tired without any real break in the nonaction. Read full review

  • 42
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Without that heightened racial antipathy-turned-camaraderie, there's not a whole lot to Cop Out besides watching Kevin Smith pretend, with a crudeness that is simply boring, that he's an action director making a comic thriller about cops versus a Mexican drug gang (yawn). Read full review

  • 40
    Variety |

    There's precious little of that tension to be found between co-leads Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, but more than enough between director Kevin Smith and the shoddy script he's elected to take on, and neither seems willing to budge. Read full review

  • 38
    Washington Post | Michael O'Sullivan

    It's a performance in search of a movie. Read full review

  • 38
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    A lot of the dialogue is intended as funny, but man, is it lame. Read full review

  • 38
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    Director Kevin Smith's tweets, jokes and sharp commentary after being denied a seat aboard a Southwest Airlines flight because of his girth were a lot more engaging than Cop Out, his new movie. Read full review

  • 30
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    It's a phoned-in, gutless piece of hack work that reminds you of other, better films in the same vein. Read full review

  • 25
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    Represents his (Smith) first act of cinematic cynicism, his first crime against his own talent. With this action comedy, he has given us 110 worthless minutes, a bad formula movie like every other bad formula movie. Read full review

View more reviews for Cop Out on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+ Crude Tracy Morgan comedy falls completely flat.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this buddy cop comedy (starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan) is directed by Kevin Smith, who is infamous for pushing the limits of an R-rating. This movie is no exception. Both the movie's humor, language, and violence are pretty extreme. Not only are there so many swear words (F-bombs in particular) it's nearly impossible to count, but there are lots of explicit sexual jokes (about everything from positions to prison rape to infidelity), though no actual sex scenes. The violence isn't grisly, but there is a considerable body count and several gang-style executions.
  • Families can talk about Jimmy and Paul's relationship. Are they good partners? How are they more loyal to each other than anyone else in their lives?
  • What about the violence? How do the violence and comedy relate to each other?
  • Is all of the swearing necessary? Does strong language make the dialogue funnier, or does it lose its impact, because it's used so often?
  • How do Kevin Smith and the screenwriters pay tribute to past cop comedies? How does this movie compare to others in the genre?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Despite several underlying positive messages -- a strong theme of cooperation and teamwork, wives should be trusted, daughers will love fathers even if they can't pay for fancy weddings, and people should know better than to mess with police partners -- the violence, language, and immature behavior the police officers engage in makes getting a positive message out of this film difficult.
  • rolemodels true0 Positive role models: Between unrepentant drug dealers and criminals, a husband who doesn't trust his wife, and police partners who violate their suspension for a personal, financially motivated reason, the characters in this movie aren't exactly positive role models. Even the supporting characters are negative role models: the generous step-father character is a jerk, the wealthy robbery victim is a gun-toting materialistic woman, and the Russian doctor is willing to sacrifice his wife before his new Mercedes.
What to watch for
  • violence false4 Violence: There's at least a dozen murders in this movie, several of which are brutal gangland executions. Others are the result of shoot-outs between criminals and cops. It's not bloody violence, like "Pulp Fiction" because the camera tends to pull away or focus on the killer, as opposed to the murder victims. There are two scenes of torture, in which a drug kingpin with a baseball bat hits balls into a victim's torso. In one scene a kid kicks a cop in the groin and the cop kicks the boy back.
  • sex false3 Sex: Although there are no actual love scenes in the movie, there are many, often graphic, sexual references. For example: Dave makes jokes about several specific sexual positions that Paul's wife enjoys. He also makes jokes about anal rape and sex while temporarily in jail. Paul waggles his eyebrows at his wife and tells her he knows she married him because he's "orally fixated."  Debbie wears lingerie and pretends she's going to sleep with a man, in order to get back at Paul for placing a nanny-cam in their bedroom. Paul tells Jimmy about Bonobo chimpanzees and their sexual proclivities in the wild.
  • language false5 Language: Unsurprisingly, this is a veritable F-word-fest. It's fair to say that every conversation includes several F-bombs and its cousin, "motherf--ker." Other oft-said words include "p---y," "bitch," "a--hole," "dick," "s--t," "c--ksucker," and more. Occasional "goddamn" and "Jesus Christ" used as exclamations.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false2 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Adult characters drink at dinner and at a bar. The movie's central criminal is a drug dealer. There are many discussions about the drug trade, his connections, and his ambitions to rule the New York drug supply.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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